An old volleyball saying proved true for the Resurrection volleyball team.

“Volleyball is a game of momentum,” Resurrection coach Theresa Baetzel said.

After two tightly-contest sets, Thursday’s 3A Orr Sectional Final between the Geurin Gators and Resurrection Bandits went into a third, and the third-seeded Bandits had the momentum from the first serve.

The Bandits quickly jumped to a 4-0 lead and never looked back, en route to the 25-14 third-set win and sectional crown.

“They decided that this game was going to be theirs, and they took it; and there was no looking back,” first-year coach Baetzel said. “They had to get to that point where they really felt it, and they felt it [in the third set].”

The Gators (18-14) were riddled with six serving errors in the third alone, whereas the Bandits only committed five throughout the night.

Those errors and a confused offense seemed to get the worst of Guerin in the third.

“Everything broke down in one time,” Guerin coach Dominic DiSilvio said. “You just can’t do that. We just broke down, in a nut shell.”

The Gators came out firing in the first, forcing Baetzel to burn two timeouts early in the set, the last one called when her team was down 13-7.

Resurrection came as close as 19-18 but never left that mark, as Guerin’s outside hitter Alex Bojan – who had a team-high eight kills – put up two blocks that pushed her team to the 25-18 win.

The Bandits fell behind early in the second but fought to tie the set at 5-5. That set alone saw eight tied scores, and the pressure was felt when the Bandits were down 21-19.

Lyskanowski recorded an ace and Kilgallon pounded a kill that tied the set 22-22.

Senior defensive specialist Lexi Mpistolarides served one of her seven aces that forced a third set, and the Bandits rolled from there.

This was the program’s first sectional title since 1988. With the win, the Bandits will face Richmond-Burton in the 3A Central Super Sectional on Saturday. The Bandits quickly jumped to a 4-0 lead and never looked back, en route to the 25-14 third-set win and sectional crown.